


Death flowers have the sweetest scent

by toby_or_not_toby



Category: Rick and Morty
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Latino Rick Sanchez (Rick and Morty), Loss of Innocence, Minor Character Death, Original Character(s), Season/Series 01, or something like that anyway?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24893878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toby_or_not_toby/pseuds/toby_or_not_toby
Summary: She still left flowers for him.It seemed ridiculous, after everything. Aliens and conspiracies and alternate universes, who was one dead high school kid?It didn’t stop her though.---Summer and death - a relationship.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Death flowers have the sweetest scent

She still left flowers for him.

It seemed ridiculous, after everything. Aliens and conspiracies and alternate universes, who was one dead high school kid?

It didn’t stop her though.

When Rick had moved in with them, nothing much had changed for Summer, at least not for the first little while. Of course, Morty seemed to change – becoming quieter, more tired. Dad had gotten grumpier, more insecure. And mom had oscillated, one minute crying with happiness at the presence of her long-lost father, the next crying for all the pain he had caused her.

Grandpa Rick had seemed cool enough. He was snarky, and whip smart. Summer had liked to think she could see herself in his humour.

But Rick had soon focused all his attention on Morty, and Summer had decided  _ screw him _ then, and continued on with her life.

She remembered the day pretty clearly. Rick’s flippant comment about god across the breakfast table. It had stayed with her. She still wasn’t sure why.

And then Frank had been in the hall.

She saw him, and saw their wedding play out in slow motion. Make believe, of course. But fun, and silly, and beautiful.

She would start dating him, this tall, dark, bad boy, who smoked cigarettes behind the bleachers and rode a motorcycle that seemed to be held together with duct tape and a prayer. Her dad would hate him, but she wouldn’t care. She’d wrap her arms around him and ride away, flipping the bird at her stupid family, and driving off into the sunset.

She’d get tattoos! Nothing too intense, maybe on her upper arm. Or on her legs. Something that could be covered up for jobs and all that, but would still be really fucking cool.

And piercings! She’d get the second lot in her ears, and a belly button one, and maybe even a septum one! (Although she hadn’t been sold on the septum thing. Maybe she could just get one of those fake ones, to make her dad faint and her mom shake her head in disappointment.)

And Frank, tall and intimidating (and slightly smelly from the cigarette smoke), would look at her, and his eyes would soften. And he would let her into his mind, and she would find a kind and gentle soul under all the posturing. He’d still be able to beat people up though! But to her, he would be kind, and gentle, and he would tell her about all his troubles, and she would help him fix them, one at a time, over beers and stupid TV shows on a ratty couch in a ratty apartment that they rented together with their own money when they rode out of this stupid school and this stupid town and this stupid life.

They would talk about marriage before he proposed, nothing concrete, but enough to know his proposal was coming. Then he would take her out, to a river or a lake or to the ocean, and the stars would shine in the sky and in the water, and he would have gotten his biker friends to all bring guitars, and they would play a song (their song, hers and Franks. Maybe something with a bit of metal screaming in it. But not much. Just enough to be cool, but still listenable. But he wouldn’t scream it, obviously, he’d just sing it to her). And his voice would be deep and beautiful, but still vulnerable, and at the end he would drop to his knees, and ask her to spend the rest of her life with him.

And by this point, all the passersby on the boardwalk would have stopped to gasp and smile and take their phones out to film the whole thing, this beautiful scene with a scary looking punk boy and his still punky (but tastefully so) girlfriend.

And Summer wouldn’t say yes immediately. She would keep her cool, and hold the scene, and say ‘hmm, maybe,’ and the crowd would gasp, but then she would say yes (of course) and pull him up from his knees and snog him senseless.

And even though she was punk, she would wear white to their wedding, but she would wear black leather gloves, so after they had swapped rings they could jump on his motorcycle together and ride off into the sunset. Again.

(She’d had to stop for a moment there, and try to work out how she would put a ring on if she was wearing gloves, and if she could find a cool way to take the glove off and then put it back on. Or maybe she would just wear one glove? But that would negate the whole point.)

(She then decided she could work out the finer details closer to the actual wedding day. And then realized how long she’d probably been standing there, thinking about all of this, and that she had to get a move on, and actually go up to Frank, and talk to him, in order to get the ball rolling).

She had sidled up to his locker. A part of her had known, of course, that it was all silly and unfeasible, and probably absolutely nothing would come of it, but she had been a kid back then, and willing to run with her own foolishness.

And then everything had crumbled to dust before her eyes.

Literally (very very literally), but also figuratively.

(A dark part of her, the part that was probably influenced by the Sanchez bloodline, found the parallel to be distinctly hilarious).

\---

She had found herself at the front of organizing his remembrance service at the school. She didn’t know how really. She still hadn’t worked out what had happened, but suddenly there was grief and fear and horror, and she had cut out a cardboard cross with the help of Jenny and Chika, and put it by his locker.

The juniors were given the afternoon off from classes, to mourn. And Summer had slowly come to realize that nobody really knew the boy they were mourning for.

Frank Palicky hadn’t had friends, at least not in the school. He had been callous, and mean, and aggressive. Most of the year had been terrified of him.

Funny, the sentiments that death can change.

Principal Vagina had called his mother at some point, and she had come in as Summer was organizing more flowers to be lain.

Sra. Palicky had stopped dead in the hallway, eyes fixed on the cardboard cross, slightly wonky, off white paint from the arts cupboard slapped over the packaging stamps, and had started to cry.

\---

By the time Morty was born, mom had given up on the idea of raising bilingual children, so Summer only had a bit of Spanish left. But between her ‘español chapurreado’ (she had needed to look the second word up) and Sra. Palicky’s ‘broken English,’ they managed to get communication going.

Sr. Palicky had died three years earlier. He had been an accountant, working his way up the corporate ladder, before a careless driver had run him off the sidewalk.

Frank had been struggling before that, bad grades, worse behaviour, but he had been building a better relationship with his dad, and things were starting to stabilize for him.

When his father had died, he’d gone off the rails.

Sra. Palicky hadn’t been able to give him the support he needed, not between the jobs she’d had to pick up to support them (and without fluent English, job opportunities had been few).

She had been expecting something to happen to her son, eventually, be it incarceration or injury or death, but she had thought she would have a few years longer.

And a part of her had held onto the belief that he would grow out of the fighting and posturing and punching walls, and that she would have her baby again.

Summer had nothing to give, except an arm around her shoulder, a cup of tea, and a box of tissues, where they sat, huddled together in the teacher’s longue (that had been cleared out for their purposes).

And Summer had never been religious, not really, but when Sra. Palicky had bowed her head and started to pray (Spanish far too fast for Summer to catch), that was when she’d truly realised that religion couldn’t help her, not in a world where things like this could happen to a family that had already been torn asunder.

\---

The police ruled it as either an ‘unexplained example of sudden human combustion’ or a ‘mishap with an illegally obtained firearm.’

That had pierced through Summer’s shock, left her scorching and screaming at the police chief who had the gall to announce such bullshit to the school.

(later, much later, she would ask Rick if he had done something to the police, so they wouldn’t get in the way of his adventures. His eye roll and murmur-mumbled something-something had been answer enough).

She had been taken (dragged) to the nurse’s office to calm down. Her dad had been called, and permission to give her a valium had been granted.

She had lain in the med room, staring up at the ceiling as it swooped and fell with her breaths, until her dad had arrived to pick her up.

If he’d said anything to her on the way home, she hadn’t noticed.

\---

The sound of arguing was what woke her.

She’d thought, for a moment, that the argument might have been about her.

But they never were.

She had run down to the garage, tears streaming, and told her family that her classmate was dead.

Dad had barely glanced at her. Mom had given her a vaguely concerned look, but kept her attention on the conversation at hand.

Grandpa Rick had spouted some flippant remark (about all that could be expected from him, even now).

But not even Morty had turned to look at her.

They weren’t best friends, never had been. But Summer had always known that Morty cared about her, at least a little. Enough to send her memes every few days, and to finish off her vine references, and to give her a hug once in a blue moon.

But he hadn’t even turned around.

At the time, all she could do was slam the door and stumble away, before the tears took her again.

But later she would think – Frank’s death was Summer’s introduction to reality.

What had Morty’s been?

\---

She had given Sra. Palicky her phone number, and she was called a few days later and given the details of the funeral. She had skipped school to attend, not bothering to let admin or her parents know what was happening.

No one noticed anyway.

It was a small affair at the local catholic church, only Sra. Palicky and a few of her siblings in attendance. The bishop hadn’t known Frank at all, but he had seen Sra. Palicky at the Spanish service every week since the family had moved into town.

He didn’t say much, only the usual stuff – dust and dust and something about ‘los corintios.’

It was closed casket, because there wasn’t really a body left – the school janitor had already swept it up by the time the police arrived, and after they had been through it, nothing worth salvaging remained.

Summer had left early, had left Sra. Palicky in the care of her family, and had gone to the local shopping mall, where she had sat, staring at nothing, until mall security had said something very pointed about both loitering and skipping classes.

Then she had gone home.

\---

There was an alien invasion. Actually, there had been so many alien invasions that she had lost count.

Summer was more acclimated to death, now. She had caused her fair share of planet-wide genocides. She was familiar with hundreds of weapons (including her own hands, wrapped around men’s/women’s/impossible-to-tell-gendered-alien-lifeform’s throats).

She still left him flowers. Once a month.

It was a stupid tradition, really. He was just some guy. She hadn’t known anything about him before Rick had killed him in the middle of her school’s hallway.

But maybe that was the point, somehow.

She would bump into Sra. Palicky at his gravestone, every so often. She was better at Spanish, having made Grandpa Rick talk to her in the language until she felt more confident.

Sra. Palicky was doing better. She was living with her sister, and planned to for the foreseeable future. At first, such close contact with all her nieces and nephews had been difficult, but over time, caring for them had started to fill the void that Frank had left behind.

She still came to his gravestone every day (when her sister’s kids were at school, and when her sister herself was at work), and as far as Summer could tell, she probably would for the rest of her life.

Summer wondered how many mothers there were in the universe (or even the multiverse), standing vigil for sons slayed by Sanchez’ hands.

Or by Smith’ hands, now.

She would never know, and she knew she would never know. The number was too big to even dream of.

So she left flowers.

And it wasn’t enough.

But it was something.

**Author's Note:**

> Past perfect is such an awkward tense to write in, regardless of the language. Imma try to stick to simple past next time (if I remember - which i probs won’t lol).  
> I’m stuck in a loop of 1) i dont like my writing so i dont want to write 2) but if i dont write, then i wont get better 3) but i dont like it, so i dont wanna 4) but if i dont…  
> You get it.  
> So im rewatching Rick and Morty (genuine art, let me tell you), and imma see if i can write some mini something for each episode.  
> We’ll see how long that idea lasts!!!!  
> Anyway, ty for reading. Like and subscribe and follow and tweet and send a carrier pigeon or something. Love to y’all xxx  
> PS: [this](https://rickandmorty.fandom.com/wiki/Frank_Palicky) is the character im talking about (if you’re wondering). He’s the first character to die on the show.


End file.
